Barbey v. Boardman

Citations

• 202 Pa. 185
• 51 A. 756
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 492

Syllabus

<p>Will — Issue devisavit vel non — Testamentary capacity — Paresis—Evidence.</p> <p>A verdict and judgment in favor of a will contested on the ground of lack of testamentary capacity in the testator, will be sustained, where the uneontradicted evidence shows that eighteen months prior to the execution of the will testator exhibited symptoms of paresis, and was placed in a sanitarium; that shortly thereafter in proceedings under the act of June 25, 1895, he was declared a “ weak-minded person; ” that subsequently the decree was vacated and his property put again in his control; that from that date, a period of about ten months, the evidence was overwhelming that his disease, if it existed all, was in abeyance; that for fully two months after the will was made the evidence of his physician and companion who saw him daily, was, that his mental faculties were unimpaired ; that the disease of paresis is a progessive one, and is not immediately destructive of the mental faculties, but is attended with fluctuations, and that absolute dementia seldom exists, except in the last stage.</p>